Friday Foolery #24: An update on Bacon vs. Financial Crisis

Quick, what do the states of Iowa & Kansas and the city of Portland, Oregon have in common right at this very moment?

According to Google Trends, an overwhelming dominance for Google searches about 'bacon', with hardly a trace of 'Dr. Who', 'financial crisis', 'cupcakes', and 'medical library'!





What does this data mean? Where did the cupcakes go when they posted a strong showing in both states and Portland on September 26, 2008? Where is the medical library?!

I have no idea, except to note the news reference volume which is clearly fixated on 'financial crisis'.

I can't include 'stimulus package' or other updated economic meltdown terms since I began the original Friday Foolery or that would be tinkering.

Who knows what will occur with this search trend 24 weeks in the future, but rest assured that Friday Foolery will cover it!

'Staff infections': Where to turn for online information?

Last week a three part investigative journalism series (1, 2, and 3) was published by the Seattle Times about methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. This details how they did it when "state and federal governments don't bother to count MRSA cases." The Department of Health in Washington announced that they would begin tracking the incidence of MRSA in hospitals here as a result of the series.

S. aureus is also known as 'staph', so patients can have either a nasty MRSA infection or a regular old 'staph infection.' I always question how much time clinical staff are being able to spend with their patients to make sure they understand a diagnosis when they email family & friends about their 'staff infections'. I've seen this happen with enough frequency to suspect it isn't a fluke, so I decided to do a little research of my own along these lines.

It absolutely kills me as a medical librarian to admit that Google is on the ball with this common mishap, look what happens when you search for 'staff infection' there:



Google 'knows' you mean staph infection and redirects you accordingly in a fairly straightforward way.

Does consumer health gold standard MedlinePlus? Unfortunately, no. The 6th search result makes the connection only as a pronunciation key:

"... infection that is usually caused by staph (pronounced: staff ) bacteria. What Is a Staph Infection? Staph is the shortened name..." All the other search results on the front page talk about medical staff preventative measures.

WebMD? Their advertisers are but not their resources. All three Yahoo ads mention Staph Infections before a Hepatitis B resource, a video where staph infections are mentioned as a possible tattoo side effect (listed twice in a row), then a MRSA-titled resource that doesn't mention staph or staff but does mention infection in the preview.

One .gov that gets the 'staff infection' search right? Healthfinder.gov! Check it out:



Healthfinder is also making the staff and infection connection but at least pulling a Staph Infection article to the top of the resource list. We know that the Health News article to the right about MRSA screening for health workers would be of interest but someone searching for a 'staff infection' may not.

Google Flu Trends is helping to identify search patterns for that particular topic, what do the data look like for 'staff infection' in addition to MRSA & staph infection?



There is additional subregion data that gives some clues about health literacy needs in certain areas.. but is anyone else thinking and monitoring along these lines?

Friday Foolery #1: Bacon vs. Financial Crisis on Google

I always like ending the workweek on a fun note, so I've decided to start sharing random, bizarre and/or entertaining tidbits here on Fridays that may or may not be useful to you as well.

Perhaps I've been living under a rock as I was completely unaware of Google Trends until now. I was alerted to its existence not by one of the many fine technology blogs out there but by Cupcakes Take the Cake who shared that 'cupcakes' are a more popular search term on Google than 'financial crisis'.

Hooray for cupcakes! I have always been a huge fan of them, and am kicking myself that I didn't know about the Crumbs and Doilies bakery when we were in London. Dr. Who cupcakes on Flickr? Pure brilliance!




However, as those who know me are well aware, my predominant food obsession is bacon. I love bacon. Apparently so do many other Google users as shown below in the popularity in the US during the past 30 days for searches on 'bacon', 'Dr. Who', 'financial crisis', 'cupcakes', and 'medical library'.


'Bacon' and 'cupcakes' are both above 'financial crisis', but the latter is starting to shoot up. 'Dr. Who' and 'medical library' appear to share a peaceful coexistence toward the bottom. I can only hope this is because everyone already knows exactly where to go for information about either when needed!

What's also kind of interesting is the Rank by tab where you select one of your search terms and it gives you data by subregions and city. As of now, bacon's results are











This may provide an environmental explanation behind my love of bacon: Sacramento (10) was my hometown of 18 years, I lived around San Francisco (9) for 6, and the rest of my life thus far in Seattle (5).

I'm going to keep tabs on this search and am not above some covert action if need be to retain bacon and cupcakes' authority over the financial crisis.